James Patterson: The Stories of My Life

I first came into contact with James Patterson in 1997 when I watched "Kiss the girls" in the cinema and soon afterwards also read the book. I was immediatly hooked, and have read several James Patterson books since then. Although not nearly all, and after seeing how many he has published over the years this seems impossible. I knew he writes and co-authors a lot of books, but I wasn't aware that there are sooo many books out with his name on the cover, and in many different genres nonetheless.

In this book James Patterson does what the titel says - he tells stories of his life. Many of them. As usual presented in short chapters or sometimes they are even only a nugget of information in a short pararaph before he skips to a different anecdote. And he really has a lot to tell. From his days as a long-haired hippie at Woodstock (!!) to his career as a mad men in 'advertising hell' (his words) to becoming on of the most bestselling authors of the last 30 years.

There are some interesting stories in there, for example how Donald Trump and Bill Clinton enjoyed playing golf and got along just fine - before Trump ran for president himself.
Or some funny ones, how he went to a book-signing, and the people from the bookstore were very excited and happy that he was there and prepared a big table with 200 books ready to sign - all of them by author Richard North Patterson. But he signed the books anyway.
But also some sad ones, for example how he lost his first life-partner to cancer.
He also explains why he always writes very short chapters, how he manages it to publish so many books year after year (one reason is because he writes about 350-360 days a year) and how his co-writing with other authors actually works.